Democrats Cement Themselves as #TheAssistance
In a defining moment for #TheResistance and theTrump administration, Democrats assist in making life easier for him and the Republican Party.
The latest cave by almost all the Senate Democrats to end the government shut down is the clearest sign yet that there is not really an opposition party in Congress. At most, they are a meager fence against completely reversing their main legislative achievements during the Obama administration. Most Democrats have voted for a substantial number of Trump’s nominees, with only the suspected Democratic candidates for 2020(Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand) being regular no votes. This party is only opposed to Trump in style, and doesn’t really care for the substance at the end of the day. They will continue to assist with major parts of Trump’s agenda as long as it’s part of their status quo. They have no foresight or principles, but instead see every issue as just how it will impact their immediate electoral future.
The entire DACA and shutdown situation perfectly encapsulates the nature of the Democratic Party. Ever since Trump revoked DACA protections from immigrants who were brought here as children in September, Democrats have been trying to negotiate a deal to pass the DREAM Act that would bring these protections back and put them on a path to citizenship. But over the past 4 months Democrats have voted to pass CRs, or continuing resolutions, to keep the government open and negotiate a deal before the next deadline. They were close just last week, but the details of that prospective deal show how much Democrats were willing to give away.
The bill does provide protection for Dreamers, but restricts legal immigration in other ways, like cutting the diversity visa lottery program by half, reducing immigration from the very countries Trump called shitholes. Parents of Dreamers would only be able to obtain three-year provisional legal status and not become citizens themselves, putting a cloud over the head of Dreamers and their families. Not only does the bill send three more billion dollars for border security and a wall, but Chuck Schumer went out of his way to give Trump the wall. Even Representative Gutierrez, who normally takes a firm stand on immigration issues, was willing to make the exact same concession.
While some center left liberals say this is merely symbolic, what was the point of criticizing Trump’s call for a wall if this was all just symbolic? Democrats are just trading some immigrants for others with this deal. They are overall signing onto massive changes to the immigration system that furthers the vision of white nationalists. Democrats largely don’t differ too much on how they see immigration from Republicans. Democrats also are determined to stop undocumented immigration, and have gone out of their way to separate the “good and deserving” immigrants like Dreamers because they’re working for a tech company or serving the military from the “undeserving” immigrants, like people that came here to try and find a better life for their families. Democrats are placing some immigrants on a pedestal above others based off of how they can serve us, rather than acknowledge the intrinsic human value of all immigrants.
This overly compromised bill won’t even happen as Trump’s senior staff and the Freedom Caucus in the House have been resistant to any deal. Democrats still voted to open the government, with just a promise form McConnell they will try and get a vote if they don’t figure out a deal on immigration by February 8th. This is the same McConnell that has brazenly lied repeatedly. The same McConnell that has taken every cynical political opportunity that’s presented itself. This is who we’re supposed to trust to do the right thing. In the meantime 2,000 more DACA recipients will be deported without their protection.
Democrats abandon their leverage and abandon any idea they can be trusted to be a reliable opposition. There’s no reason to think Republicans will feel any pressure in 3 weeks when Democrats have not showed any inclination they’ll shut down the government for any significant amount of time. The idea that we should give Democrats another 3 weeks when this began in September is incredibly foolish. As ICE continues to terrorize and destroy families across the country, this lack of courage or principles from Democrats is back breaking to the many activists and dreamers that have fought all this time.
This isn’t the only issue they’ve shown to be feckless. The other notable example of late is their vote to reauthorize FISA, a law that will allow Trump’s NSA and Jeff Sessions to spy on Americans, especially marginalized communities that they will wrongly point out as threats. Prominent TV Democrats like Adam Schiff and Eric Swawell that have gotten big profiles for being on the House Intelligence community and criticizing Trump as compromised by Russia and authoritarian voted to give Trump these powers. The Russia investigation, while important, also spurred Democrats to vote on sanctions on Russia, but this was part of a package of sanctions that also included several on Iran, putting former President Obama’s chief foreign policy achievement, the nuclear deal with iran, in massive jeopardy Democrats have essentially escaped being held to account for any of these votes by media and skated by while giving major policy victories to the Trump administration.
This is because most of this performance is a work meant to get them back into power and nothing more. When Republicans first passed their attempt at an ACA repeal in the House, Democrats were not filled with rage but glee as they sang “na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye”. They don’t feel that they have to do the necessary work of politics and that “the Republicans will look bad” is all that’s needed to get them back into power. This is just a game to them, and they have no interest in upholding anything other than some hollow norms and processes that do little for most Americans. While Democrats claim victory months in advance and put up their feet, Republicans were able to repeal the individual mandate of the ACA with the tax bill, and that the markets are further hurting due to the nature of the private market and the sabotage of the Trump administration. The operating assumptions of the Democratic Party is that Republicans looking bad will get them back into power so long as they do nothing to offend a handful of racist suburban white women they see as sensible centrists. They won’t ever take a bold or radical action to defend the marginalized because they serve their own half of the ruling class. Their job is to just make sure the machine that grinds us keep churning. That’s why they should be strictly known as #TheAssistance.
There are Democrats posturing themselves as an actual opposition because they want to win our votes in 2020. We should hold that standard to every Democrat who will be asking for our votes in 2018. And the ones that ask for our votes in 2020 must be held to a standard that they will twist the arms of the Democrats that are obsessed with compromise rather than defending their own base. The problem with the party is that the leadership allows this and actively pushes for it. Democrats running for President can’t just be given credit for the right votes, they need to demonstrate they’ll actively change the nature of their party, or their posturing is useless.
